The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for producing a food product from minced fish meat and the like, having the appearance of cooked-and-peeled shrimp.
Apparatus for producing food products having the appearance of cooked-and-peeled shrimp from minced fish meat are disclosed in the applicants' U.S. patent application Ser. No. 818,618, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,692,341, and Ser. No. 879,984. These applications, the disclosures therein being incorporated into this application by reference, disclose apparatus including a split-in-two metal mold having a cavity in the shape of a cooked-and-peeled or shelled shrimp, a device for spraying a dye over the inner surface of the mold, a filler for injecting minced fish meat into the mold cavity, a heating device for heating and solidifying the minced fish meat in the mold, and a device for removing the food product from the mold. The shrimp-like food product thus produced has a fan-like tail at one end, an arcuate abdomen portion in the center, and a thicker end which, in a real shrimp, is broken off from the head. As shown in FIG. 4 herein, the mold cavity for forming the shelled-shrimp-like food product has its fishmeat receiving opening at the thicker end where the removed head is connected.
The shelled-shrimp-shaped food products produced by the above-mentioned apparatus have the appearance of the natural or real products. When the natural shrimps are large in size, their gut portion extending from the head to the back is removed during the cooking-and-peeling process. The resulting groove does not become colored even after heating, and both ridges or sides of the groove swell after heating. If the simulated food product were formed in this shape by the mold, the product could not be removed out of the mold. If the mold were shaped so that the product can be removed from the mold, the resulting food would not have a natural appearance.